Cultural Heritage, the Swedish Folklife Sphere, and the Others1
Cultural Heritage, The Swedish Folklife Sphere, and the Others Cultural Heritage, as the 1970s, Swedes regarded them- the Swedish Folklife Sphere, selves as exceedingly homogeneous with 1 respect to culture, religion, and language. and the Others However, it has become increasingly dif- ficult to maintain such a self-image: dur- Barbro Klein ing the past twenty or thirty years Swe- den has received refugees and immi- Swedish Collegium for grants from all over the globe to such an Advanced Studies (SCAS) extent that now almost one fourth of the Uppsala, Sweden 9 million inhabitants were born outside the country or are children of recent ar- rivals from afar. e are in the midst of a global On the next few pages I will discuss "cult of heritage," asserts the rise of the Swedish word for cultural English geographer, historian W heritage, kulturarv, in a fairly long histori- and professor of heritage studies, David cal perspective. I will concentrate on an Lowenthal (1998, 1–30). Indeed, cultural area of public culture that might be called heritage (or simply heritage) and its the "sphere of the vernacular" or the many equivalents or near equivalents, "folklife sphere" (Klein 2000a). Included such as kulturarv (Swedish, Danish, Nor- in this sphere are a variety of "folk" mu- wegian), Erbgut (German), patrimoine seums and "folk" disciplines, such as and héritage culturel (French), folklore, folklife studies, and ethnology, menningararfur (Icelandic), turath (Ara- and such activities and phenomena as bic), and the recent Chinese coinage the homecraft and folk music move- wenhua yichan, are becoming increas- ments. I will pay particular attention to ingly dominant in cultural politics the the relationship between kulturarv and a world over.
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